The Sherry Tasting Table: Tapas and Cheese, Dry to Sweet

by Anne Kjellgren @ Food Wine and Flavor | Sep 3, 2026 | Expand Your Palate, Pairings

The Sherry Tasting Table – Full tapas and cheese platter – (1920 x 1080 px)

Because sherry runs the full distance from dry to sweet, the pairing this week is not a single dish. It is a build-your-own flight, and the tapas table is the lesson: match each style to the right bite, and the whole spectrum clicks into place at once.

The Rule

Bone-dry styles want salt and brine. Nutty, oxidative styles want aged cheese and savoury richness. The sweetest style wants something sharp enough to meet it head on. Everything below follows from that one idea.

Fino and Manzanilla: Salt Meets Salt

Jamón, green olives, Marcona almonds, a few boquerones if available. Nothing cooked, nothing complicated. The wine’s own salinity meets the food’s salt directly, and each sharpens the other rather than repeating it. Serve both well chilled.

Amontillado: Nutty Meets Nutty

Aged Manchego and warm jamón croquetas. The wine’s walnut and hazelnut character moves at the same pace as the cheese’s density; let them sit together rather than rushing the bite. Serve lightly chilled.

Oloroso: Weight Meets Weight

Cured and savoury meats, aged hard cheese, a handful of walnuts. The wine’s dry richness needs food with real weight behind it, or it reads as heavier than it is. Serve cool, not cold.

Pedro Ximénez: Sweet Meets Sharp

Cabrales or Roquefort, dark chocolate, Medjool dates. This is the recurring sweet-wine-and-blue-cheese principle taught earlier this year, at its richest expression yet. For a showpiece finish, pour a little Pedro Ximénez directly over vanilla ice cream and let dessert become unnecessary as a separate course.

Arrange the platter in clusters rather than one undifferentiated spread, each style’s bites grouped near its glass. Guests should be able to see the pairing logic before they taste it.

Serving the Flight

Pour in order, dry to sweet: Fino, Manzanilla, Amontillado, Oloroso, Pedro Ximénez. Serve the first two well chilled, Amontillado lightly chilled, and the last two cool but not cold. Let each glass finish before moving to the next; this is a tasting built on sequence, not simultaneous sipping.

The Recipe

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Sherry Tasting Platter: A Build-Your-Own Tapas and Cheese Flight

A build-your-own tapas and cheese platter matched to sherry’s full range, Fino through Pedro Ximenez. No cooking required, twenty minutes to assemble.

Course: Appetizer, Tasting Flight

Cuisine: Spanish

Keyword: no-cook appetizer platter, Pedro Ximenez blue cheese, sherry flight ideas, sherry pairing flight, sherry tasting platter, Spanish tapas board, tapas and cheese platter recipe

Author: Anne Kjellgren @ Food Wine and Flavor

Materials

Fino / Manzanilla Cluster

Jamón serrano or ibérico thinly sliced
Green olives
Marcona almonds
Boquerones white anchovies, optional

Amontillado Cluster

Aged Manchego cut into wedges
Jamón croquetas warmed
Sautéed mushrooms lightly salted

Oloroso Cluster

Cured and braised meats: chorizo soppressata
Walnuts
Aged hard cheese

Pedro Ximénez Cluster

Cabrales or Roquefort blue cheese
Dark chocolate squares
Medjool dates
Vanilla ice cream for serving

Instructions

If using croquetas or mushrooms, warm or saute them just before serving so they arrive hot alongside the room-temperature components.
Arrange each cluster in its own section of a large board or platter, grouped in the order the wines will be poured: Fino and Manzanilla, then Amontillado, then Oloroso, then Pedro Ximénez.
Pour the corresponding sherry alongside each cluster as guests arrive, or set out all four glasses per person for a self-guided flight.
Reserve the vanilla ice cream in the freezer until dessert, then pour Pedro Ximénez over a scoop as the closing course.

Notes

Notes and Variations

If sourcing all four sherry styles is not practical, a two-style flight, Fino and Pedro Ximénez, still demonstrates the dry-to-sweet range clearly.
The platter scales easily; double each cluster for a larger gathering rather than adding new components.
Leftover Pedro Ximénez keeps well and makes an easy dessert pour on its own, no ice cream required.

Wine Pairing

This platter was built specifically around sherry’s full range, and each cluster is matched to a style rather than to the platter as a whole. The Pedro Ximénez and blue cheese pairing in particular reflects a principle that recurs across this year’s sweet-wine weeks: concentrated sweetness and salty, funky cheese complete each other rather than competing.